Activities of daily life have been improved with multiple products that unfortunately have done a poor job of protecting the joints and promoting their realignment during movements. The products suffer by locking or limiting the mobility of the body joints. Such products can cause injuries due to unnecessary strain on the joints, muscle imbalance and pain.
The skeletal system and the muscle groups that are designed to promote movement of the human body are run by the brain and the nervous system that pass on commands for each motion performed by the human body. In order to maximize the force output and efficiency of the movement, the joints involved should be perfectly aligned so that the signal from the brain to the muscle is not interrupted by different factors, such as joint pain, that signals the brain that the movement must be stopped or the joints realigned to protect the body from injury.
Various reasons can cause the body to move at less than the optimum ability or potential. Using products that position the body improperly can lead to interruption of the movement or cause muscle imbalances to develop, leading to injuries and discomfort. People who suffer from joint aches such as arthritis, tendonitis, bursitis, or any other type of joint disease, also have a serious disadvantage and can have a hard time using products that cause pain and discomfort.
Fitness and exercise has been the answer to gain muscle strength and promote a stronger and more efficient body. Some exercise products attempt to mimic training for everyday activities. Many exercise machines, however, focus on a single muscle group or a single plane of motion, thus somewhat limiting the improvements made to the body. The human body is made to move in multiple planes of motion at different speeds that should be trained in a safe progressive manner in order to best prepare the body for everyday challenges.
Fitness and exercise will be used as the primary topic of the disclosure herein. That is to be taken and understood as exemplary to demonstrate how a method and a system with joint realignment based design will benefit a user from movement enhancement, safety, efficiency, and overall quality of daily activities. Nevertheless, movement improvement based on joint realignment will benefit other aspects of life including, for example, washing, dusting, painting, cleaning, gardening, grooming, ironing, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, buffing, waxing, exercising and more.
With a lack of time to exercise, many people turn to different apparatuses with the hope of getting fast results. Many will realize that being out of shape for a certain period of time has weakened them and most of the machines are challenging or too uncomfortable on their joints. Joint pain becomes an issue and it can be difficult to apply enough strength to perform some exercise. Biomechanics and the laws of physics teach that the skeletal system needs to have its joints perfectly aligned to produce maximum force and avoid joint discomfort during a movement. There is a need for a method and system that helps realign the joints during a movement, in all planes of motion and on any type of surface.
Modern science also teaches that movement based exercise training is more beneficial to the body because it challenges the body to perform at different speeds and following different movement patterns that involve different muscle groups. It is important to note that movements involving multiple joints moved at multiple speeds in different patterns, and that involve different muscle groups to work together in different systems, promote body stability, balance, realignment, and coordination. This type of movement-based training is called functional training, where the body is forced to use proprioception, which is the unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body. This type of stimulation improves balance and stability of the body by using the ability of the brain to memorize movement patterns to create coordination between different muscle groups to stabilize the body and produce the correct amount of force output to create a movement or motion.
Everyday life is full of such challenges and exercising with stable machines in the gym does not challenge the body enough to benefit balance and stability. Those machines are also bulky, very costly and for the most part target one muscle group through a single joint. Muscle isolation promotes the muscle but does little for the ability of the brain to promote movement or memorize movement patterns. There exists a need for a method and system that promotes functional training to train the muscles in less time, and to better prepare the body against injuries. There is a need for a method and system that can facilitate functional training to promote balance, stability, coordination, strength and cardio through a solid full body workout.
One class of portable exercising apparatuses is the Hand-Held Wheeled Exercise Apparatus described in US 2008/0070762. This apparatus allows stretching and exercising by rolling the apparatus on the floor. The apparatus can only be rolled linearly in a straight line and is limited to mainly stretching and exercising the upper body and core muscles. Attempting to use the apparatus in a circular pattern puts pressure on the joints from the wrist to the elbow and the shoulders putting the user at risk of injury. The muscles in the lower parts of the body are also neglected. There is a need for an apparatus that can roll or slide in every direction and in all planes of motion and a method and system to do so without straining the joints by providing joint realignment during the movement.
Another class of portable exercising apparatus is the Exercise Apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,778, the Pushup Exercise Apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 7,377,888, and the Push-Up Exercise Unit and Apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 7,468,025 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,553,267. These apparatuses work by rotating the handles in either clockwise or counter clockwise directions while the user is performing a push-up movement. These apparatuses do a good job of protecting the wrist and elbow joints but the bottom surface of the apparatuses are made of a slip resistant material so that the apparatus remains completely stationary during movement. These apparatuses are designed to work in a vertical range of motion for the upper body, and primarily work the wrist, chest, shoulders, triceps and biceps. The muscles of the back and the lower body are not exercised. There is a need for an apparatus that can help perform more than just push-ups in a single plane of motion, and a need for a method and system that can provide exercises for the lower extremities, core and upper body while rolling or sliding in multiple directions and in circular patterns on different surfaces.
The method and apparatus described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/958,190, works by allowing the user to place a body part on a sliding element and to slide that body part to stretch and/or exercise in different directions. Because there is no handle on the sliding element to provide a secure grip, it limits the amount of force applied by the hand, for example, to return to a starting position after a stretch and/or exercise. This also limits how far the muscle involved can be stretched as well as the range of motion. Furthermore, it exerts pressure on the joints in the wrist and the ankles because there is no rotation of the sliding element. There is a need for a system and method that promotes joint realignment to allow the body to stretch further. There is a need for a reliable system to secure a body limb on an apparatus to allow maximum force to be used to bring the apparatus back from the stretched position to the starting position while safely exercising the muscle stretched, and for performing circular and linear movement patterns in all planes of motion.